Worldcrunch
This is how Nazaré’s fishermen used to dress every day, back in the 1950s. What was then an unassuming fishing village has become the Portuguese equivalent of France’s Saint-Tropez. The throngs of tourists looking for a little authenticity can still catch a glimpse of the traditional costumes today — courtesy of the town’s visitor center.
Fires caused by people are thankfully still relatively infrequent in the vast Yellowstone National Park, with just six to 10 per year. Most wildfires, such as the 1988 blazes that destroyed almost 40% of the park, are instead caused by lightning. In 1994, driving through a recently burned patch, we could only imagine what that […]
We haven’t seen much of Sub-Saharan Africa over the course of our travels, except for Zimbabwe, Swaziland and South Africa, where I took this picture, in one of the continent’s largest game reserves. This lion was feeding on giraffe remains by the side of the road. As grim as it sounds, there is something about […]
Going through all my slides, I’ve noticed some recurring themes in the thousands of photos I’ve snapped. One of them is “women carrying things on their heads” — like in this Portugal street scene in 1958, when the country was still under the authoritarian rule of Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
There are llamas and alpacas everywhere in Peru. Contrary to what people may think, they are very docile creatures and their infamous bouts of spitting are apparently quite rare. More to the point, both animals produce high-quality wool, which I can attest to: The bedspread I bought in Peru on this trip is still as […]
In 1961, my wife Claudine could still walk freely inside the Parthenon — the world-famous temple on the Athenian Acropolis. Actually, we didn’t even have to pay an entrance fee. The government didn’t begin restoration efforts, at which point it limited tourist access, until 1975. Up until then, there were no fences around most ruins […]
Brazil’s Nordeste was written about in the 1990s as one of the poorest regions in the world. What travelers find out is that photographs in the middle of poverty risk looking “quaint” and “charming,” losing that feeling of desolation that we felt there. That seems to be the case looking at this shot 22 years […]
Amalienborg, the winter home of the Danish royal family, consists of four identical palaces situated around an octagonal square. Looking at more recent photos from Wikipedia, it’s unclear whether the same guard is still standing watch nearly five decades later!
“Peking Opera” bears little resemblance to the works of Verdi and Wagner. Though this traditional Chinese art form does feature music and singing, it combines them with dance, acrobatics, and mime. As you can see, it is a very lively and colorful performance, which draws from deep within the country’s myths and folklore – and […]